36 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



on a commercial basis — similar to that claimed for other 

 " fisheries " of the great beasts of the sea hunted by 

 man for their oil and skins. The seals of this cave 

 were undoubtedly the small common seal — the Phoca 

 vitulina — and I gathered that little had been heard of 

 late years of successful expeditions to these rocks. I 

 was, however, told that a path had been cut and ropes 

 fastened to iron stanchions in the face of the rocky 

 cliffs of Pentargon Cove just before my visit to Boscastle, 

 which rendered it now comparatively easy to descend 

 the 150 feet of rock from the hill overlooking it and 

 reach the shore of the curiously isolated and enclosed 

 cove. 



So, with two companions — my sisters — I set off 

 the next morning for Pentargon Cove. We climbed 

 down the face of the cliff by the aid of the much-needed 

 ropes and found ourselves on the shore, the tide being 

 low. We hoped that we should be able to get a view 

 of the " seal-cave" and some of its inhabitants swimming 

 in its neighbourhood. We were disappointed in this, 

 and my companions hastened down to the water's edge, 

 in order to get as near as possible to the rocky sides 

 of the cove. I was about to follow them when I saw, 

 lying in the open, on the pebbles above high-tide mark, 

 what I took at first for a white fur cloak left there by 

 some previous visitor. I walked up to it, when, to my 

 extreme astonishment, it turned round and displayed to 

 my incredulous gaze a pair of very large black eyes 

 and a threatening array of teeth, from which a defiant 

 hiss was aimed at me. It was a baby seal, covered all 

 over with a splendid growth of white fur, three inches 

 deep. He was twice as big as the fur-covered young 

 of the common seal — more than two feet long — his 

 black eyes were as big as pennies, and he was lying 



